


to sew up the seams after all this defeat

by janie_tangerine



Category: Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/M, Healing, Hospitals, Idiots in Love, Late Night Conversations, Post-Episode: s01e08 The Defenders, The Defenders (Marvel TV) Spoilers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 21:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12826089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which Danny visits Colleen immediately after everything is done and over.





	to sew up the seams after all this defeat

**Author's Note:**

> Written post-Defenders for an anon who wanted _Maybe a super angsty talk post-Defenders where Danny comforts/takes care of Colleen and feels guilty cos of all her injuries and near death experiences in the series._ This is like, NOT super angsty in any way shape or form, but the rest should be following the script.
> 
> Again: nothing belongs to me, the title is from the Gaslight Anthem and here we go.

“How are your stitches holding up?”

_What the –_  oh. Colleen hadn’t heard Danny coming in her hospital room, which  _should_  worry her, but admittedly she’s on probably three different painkillers in the best case. Which is a good thing, or she’d be screaming her lungs out, probably.

“No idea,” she replies, “but they’re holding up. I think.”

“Can I check?”

She smiles – of course he would.

“Feel free to,” she shrugs. He comes forward, and she notices that while he’s covered in grime his hands are spotless clean, and he raises the sheet covering her waist. She has fresh bandages, so he can’t  _see_  anything, but the cloth is still pristine white, so obviously her stitches are holding.

He doesn’t look exactly relieved at that, though.

“I – I didn’t ask before because I figured I’d need my strength, but – do you want me to –” He raises his hand and she understands immediately what he wants to do. She shakes her head.

“You’re drained,” she replies. “There’s no need.”

“I’m not  _completely_  tapped out.”

“Maybe, but – it’s okay. Really.”

“Is it  _okay_  or are you feeling guilty?”

For a moment, she feels like asking him what the fuck is he thinking –

And then she realizes that no, he has a point.

“I don’t know,” she says, “given that I’m  _here_  and Detective Knight is currently in surgery with a  _missing arm_  because I was dumb enough to fall for Bakuto’s bait,  _maybe_ I do.”

“Claire told us everything,” he replies, “and it doesn’t seem to me that you  _fell_  for it.”

“Didn’t I? Haven’t I, since it turned out he actually  _wasn’t dead_?”

She’s aware that she sounds a tad hysterical here, which is so not what she always does – she’s always prided herself on being a rational and calm person who’d always assess the situation logically, and look at –

That train of thought dies when both his hands grab her left gently.

“So what did I do when it took me weeks to realize Harold didn’t give two fucks about me and  _worse_ , was in league with the Hand? Please. At least now he’s dead for real.”

“We can hope,” Colleen groans. “I still could have handled it better.”

“That building’s collapsed and you’re alive. You handled it as well as anyone could have.”

“I did  _not_.”

“Colleen, Murdock told me he  _had no intention of leaving that building alive_  and I let him do it, I don’t know if I  _handled_  it that much better.”

“If it was his choice you just respected it. Detective Knight didn’t  _choose_  it.”

“She’s a  _cop_ ,” he says, moving closer. “Colleen,  _please_ , don’t beat yourself up about it. She knew her job has risks. She’s alive, and I might already have arranged to bring her to the best facility I happen to be in charge of –”

“Of course you did,” Colleen smiles, and she  _has_  to, because now  _that_ is exactly what she’d have expected him to do.

“– and I just – I didn’t even try to insist with Murdock because – I mean, I thought that it was a waste that he’d throw his life away for her, but he  _loved_  her, and I thought of what I’d have done if Bakuto actually managed to kill you, and I just – I don’t know if I’d have wanted to walk out of there either.”

The last sentence is barely audible, but –

_Has she heard him right?_

“Danny, last I checked you didn’t have a death wish.”

“I  _don’t_ , but I don’t particularly care to find out how my life would be if you didn’t happen to be in it anymore.”

“Well, if it consoles you, I think I don’t particularly care to go back to how it was before you showed up and started paying my rent.”

He snorts and threads their fingers together.

“You’re welcome,” he says, and then – then his right hand goes back to her stomach. “I know you can handle that,” he says, “and I know you already survived it, but – please, just let me do it.”

“Danny, I don’t  _need_  it.”

“I don’t doubt that, but maybe  _I_  do,” he says, and at that he sends her such a  _serious_  look that she just – she just can’t say no, not when she can read on his face how fucking worried he was.

“Okay,” she concedes. “But you explain that to the doctors tomorrow.”

“I’m sure they will appreciate a donation to the hospital if they keep their mouth shut,” he says, sounding utterly relieved, and then he carefully undoes her bandage.

Her stitches are right there on her stomach, her skin reddened around them, but they  _were_  holding up just fine.

He stands up, locks the door, comes back, closes his eyes and places his hand delicately over the wound.

Thing is – the last time he did this, she was about to  _die_  and she hadn’t exactly savored the sensation.

Now she feels warmth flood from his fingertips through her skin, around the wounded area, and it’s – it’s just – she thinks she can  _feel_ her own flesh knitting back together and  _expel the damned stitches_ , and when she looks at it, she can see her skin glowing as gold as his hand, and  _nothing_  hurts anymore, not her sore muscles nor anything else that had been hurting before they pumped her full of painkillers, and then Danny takes the thread and slips it off her, and runs his fingertips over the stitch marks.

They disappear in a moment, of course, and then he nods once before the glow leaves his hand.

“There,” he says, “I like  _that_  better.”

He sounds tired.  _Hella_ tired. Of course he’d be. And thing is –  _she_  is also dead tired, and for a moment she hadn’t thought he’d get out of that building, not until she had seen the three of them walk out of it –

“Hey,” she says, “there’s space for two here.”

He gives her a tired smile, then he nods and gets rid of his jacket and shirt – they’re  _really_ filthy.

He nods towards the bathroom and she waits for him to take a quick trip over there – he comes back having at least washed the worst of the dust off his face and chest, and then he climbs into the hospital cot with her.

Usually, she’s at his back with an arm around his waist, but  _now_  he climbs on her side and grips at her hip, pulling her against him, and –

And she thinks,  _for once_ , maybe she can let this be. It’s  _nice_ , and  _she_ was the one getting injured twice and they both almost died more than once.

She closes her eyes and threads her fingers with Danny’s and she feels warm all over.

 

End.


End file.
